Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

John doesn’t remember dying, not really anyway. 

He remembers pain. He remembers fear, a lot of fear, and probably not for the reasons he should—he’s never been afraid of dying, no, but he was afraid of dying with unfinished business. The thought of dying with things unsaid, pleasures unexperienced, L.T.s unfucked—and maybe that last one took up more space in his mind than it should— that’s what scared him.

So no, John doesn’t remember dying. He does remember how he felt before, and he sure as hell remembers what happened after.

***

He woke up- no. No, John ‘Soap’ MacTavish clawed back onto the plane of the living confused and gasping for breath like a man deprived. Describing his thoughts in three words?

“Oh fuck me.”

He would like to say something felt off, or that he knew something was wrong from the beginning. He’d like to, he really would. In truth, despite the general everything about his situation, he hadn’t really noticed the difference at first. In his defense, he was a little busy with the whole ‘coming to in the remnants of a burned-down warehouse’ bit.

Rooting around the pockets of his remaining tac gear he found several things: a busted radio, a bloody knife that definitely wasn’t his, his favorite pistol, and three bullets. It would take nothing short of a miracle to get him even remotely out of the category of ‘absolutely fucked’. But that’s what they do isn’t it? Pull off the impossible with not a miracle in sight.

In that moment, Soap might have said he’d faced worse; hindsight’s always a bitch though, isn’t it?

***

Ghost remembers dying.

He remembers a lot of things, most are things he wishes he didn’t. He remembers in excruciating detail how he became Ghost. He remembers Simon dying again and again so Ghost could rise and die some more.

The final time Simon died, when he really, truly died, that memory is a bit more fuzzy.

He wasn’t there when Johnny died, but he doesn’t think he would have forgotten a single detail if he had been. He remembers Johnny in technicolor, everything about him. Sometimes he forgets things about himself to make room for everything he learns about Johnny. 

Ghost forgets he once couldn’t stand the singer—for reasons he also forgets—because all he knows now is that it’s Johnny’s favorite song.

Ghost forgets how much the movie bored him because he was too busy studying the details of Johnny’s fascinated face.

If asked when it was Johnny wormed his way into Ghost’s brain and carved out a section all his own, a liar might say Chicago, the well-intentioned might say Las Almas. Ghost though? He knew it was before that, perhaps the first time he saw the insufferable Scottish bastard with a smile full of twenty-five percent bullshit and seventy-five percent unmitigated optimism. 

In a way, when Johnny died, Ghost did too. The version of Ghost that could pretend he wasn’t irreparably changed by John ‘Soap’ MacTavish died then and there.

***

“Ghost, Ghost! Simon, put him down !” 

That was probably Price, he couldn’t really be sure.

If everyone was a little bit less terrified of The Ghost, they might have questioned it. They might have inquired about the inhuman strength, the feral look in his eyes, the animalistic growl rumbling from deep in his chest. They may have even questioned it if Ghost was ten percent less insane, but he wasn’t.

No one was really worried with how he was doing it so much as how to stop him. And really, it wasn’t fair to the rookie Ghost had pinned to the wall by the throat, he was just a messenger. However, in Ghost’s defense, anyone who’d spent five minutes in a room with Ghost and Soap would have known to stand at least ten feet away when delivering news such as “we’ve lost contact with Sergent MacTavish, and oh by the way, it happened nearly twenty-four hours ago and we didn’t tell you about it.” That to say, Ghost lashing out at the nearest thing really should have been expected, unfortunately the nearest thing was a terrified rookie currently going purple in the face.

It took four men to pry him off the poor lad, who then fell to the ground and might have passed out. Ghost still saw red, growling and clawing at everyone around him, eventually they dragged him into Price’s office and locked him in there with the captain. Price was thinking of how to pacify the raging lieutenant when the room went very quiet. His eyes met Ghost’s, an eerie calm to the man.

“One minute,” Ghost’s voice was even, clear, almost pleasant, and it was the most unnerved Price had ever been with the man.

“What?”

“One. Minute, ” he repeated, enunciating each word. “You have one minute, John, to explain why the fuck you didn’t tell me immediately.”

“It was need to know-”

“Try harder. Fifty-five seconds.”

“Simon-” a growl from the younger man had Price starting again, “Ghost. What good would it have done?”

Between one breath and the next, the previously stock-still man embedded a knife in the solid oak desk and slammed his fists on the surface. “ What good!? I should be out there, I should have been out there as soon as we lost contact.”

With a long suffering sigh, Price dropped into his chair and took a cigar from the top left drawer of his desk. He lit the cigar and took a slow drag before exhaling and speaking, “Goddamnit, Ghost. You want to know what would have happened if I’d told you then? You would’ve run off half-cocked and gotten yourself killed, you’re no good to anyone dead are you? Certainly no help to Soap.” He glanced at the clock above the door, “my minute’s up.”

And Ghost hated it, the beast in his ribcage thrashed and clawed and roared its fury, but he couldn’t fault the logic. At least not with Price only seeing part of the puzzle that made up Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley. Price didn’t know Ghost isn’t fragile, that he isn’t truly human, not anymore. He couldn’t very well tell price he wasn’t alive, not fully. As far as the world was concerned, those like him were an abomination. That’s why he always covered his skin, avoided forming bonds, denied himself the simplest affection; no one could find out what he was, if they did, he’d lose the one fucked up thing he has in this miserable existence: his job. Then came Johnny, scaling his walls like they were hardly there and making Ghost want to break all his rules. For the first time in a very long time, happiness was within reach.

And then Johnny died, and once more it all came crashing down.

Chapter Text

Soap found himself in fuck-knows-Europe covered in ashes and confused as hell. His field of vision was too small, his head hurt like a bitch, and he didn’t know how he got there. Well, he had some idea, but he didn’t recall the exact details of how he went from “simple mission” to “tied to a chair getting the shit beat out of him” to “standing in a pile of ashes”.

Maybe the whole standing relatively unharmed in the remains of an incinerated building should have tipped him off, but again, it didn’t. He wasn’t usually this obtuse, well, that may be wrong. Ghost had called him the stupidest genius he knows. Point being, the dots might as well have been on different continents with how unconnected they were.

Soap looked around, the warehouse appeared to have been in a field, trees surrounded on all sides at varying distances.

“Fuck it,” he muttered and set off in a random direction.

It paid off when about two kilometers of walking what his best guess told him was vaguely west, he came across a highway. He chose what was probably north because why not. After maybe two hours walking, a dirty blue sign stood beside the road.

Wolfsberg      3 km

Graz             78 km

Vienna       270km

He was in fucking Austria? Oh great, just fantastic, maybe he could go visit König. If he’d recalled correctly, and he was pretty sure he did, the mission was in Germany. Central Germany. So he didn’t remember how he got from Germany to bumfuck Austria, no biggie. He could go to Wolfsberg, steal a car, hightail it to France, and catch a ride through the tunnel. Easy…ish.

***

Freshly enlisted and seasoned officers alike practically fell over themselves to get out of the way of a seething Ghost stalking the halls of the base. It had been about eighteen hours since what had been dubbed ‘The Incident’. Any and all information now came from at least fifteen feet away or from one of his team members. Ghost wasn’t feeling overly fond of his team right now either but he wasn’t stupid enough to kill his superior officer and Johnny liked Gaz far too much for Ghost to lay a hand on him. Speaking of…

“Your brooding is scaring everyone.” Gaz fell into step beside Ghost.

“Find a point or leave, Garrick.”

“We found Soap’s last known.”

Ghost stopped dead in his tracks, “show me.”

The room Gaz led him to was familiar, it was often referred to as the war room. Price stood behind the laptop connected to the large screen on the wall. The screen displayed a radar map focused on central europe. 

“Good and bad news boys. As you know, our last contact with Soap was near Bernburg, Germany. He said he was heading south, chasing down a lead. Trackers went dark almost five-hundred kilometers southwest, near Stuttgart. Cameras got a hit and place him in Munich about fourteen hours ago.”

Ghost hated the pause, a pause meant the bad news was about to start, “get on with the bad news then.”

Price sighed, “he wasn’t in great shape, was with several men, got dragged into a van.”

“And we aren’t in Germany right now because?” Ghost’s patience was tenuous at best.

Gaz jumped in, “cameras tracked the van to the Austrian border. There one minute, gone the next. I took the liberty of contacting König-”

“He’s in Seoul,” Price said.

“He’s got Austrian contacts,” Gaz continued smoothly.

“König’s on mission in Seoul?” Ghost asked.

Gaz snorted, “if you count fucking on every available surface as a mission, then sure. Horangi sends his regards by the way.”

Ghost was momentarily distracted by this information, Johnny had turned him into something of a gossip, “König and Horangi are fucking?”

Gaz stared at him incredulously, “dude, where have you been? ”

“Boys,” Price said sternly.

Gaz jumped, “right, yeah.”

It took six hours for König to call them with information.

Ghost, Price, and Gaz crowded into the war room as the video feed was put up on the big screen, König was seated at a desk in nothing but a backwards baseball cap and presumably pants. The city lights of Seoul shone through the window, bathing the bedroom in a soft glow. 

“ Hallo friends, ” König’s thick accent came through the audio.

Gaz took one look at König’s hickey covered chest and neck and smirked, “lookin’ good, K.”

König blushed before speaking, “ mein contacts in Austria have a lead. Kriegshunde, War Dogs, mercenaries based in the Kärnten region. We can’t be certain, but mein contact says it looks like their work. ”

“Hired guns?” Price asked.

“ Ja. ”

“I’m assuming we don’t know who hired them?” Ghost interjected.

König nodded, “ unfortunately. We are working on tracking them, hoping they’ll lead us to Soap. ”

Horangi appeared in the left background of the screen, “ Johannes, ” and wasn’t that still a mindfuck that König had a name, “ we’ve got a lead on a Kriegshunde cell outside of Klagenfurt. ”

Price sighed, “looks like we’re going to Klagenfurt, boys.”

“ Keep us updated, let us know if you need more boots on the ground. ”

Price nodded, “enjoy your vacation, lads.”

***

Austria was fucking bullshit . It was getting dark, pouring rain, and he was pretty sure he missed some invisible exit to Wolfsberg.

“Three kilometers my arse,” he muttered.

It was an indeterminate amount of time later that Soap came across a barely legible sign.

Graz               8 km

Vienna       200km

Soap froze, recalling the last sign. He’d walked 70 km? No. No, he was probably misremembering, lack of food and water making him fuzzy. He didn’t feel fuzzy anymore though, nor hungry or thirsty.

Soap shook his head, clearing his thoughts. He needed to get to the nearest town and get a car. Stick to the plan, Soap. He resolved to keep a lookout—as much as one could in his situation—for civilization.

Luckily, the exit for Graz had a sign Soap could follow into the city. He could hear noise further in, where the lights were brighter, but it was quiet where he was. He scanned the streets for a car, nothing too flashy, nothing too new or too old, something reliable that wouldn’t stand out.

He ended up surreptitiously poking around a black Volkswagen, by some stroke of luck bordering on miracle, the doors were unlocked. Soap climbed in and closed the door, he looked around before realizing he was in the wrong seat. He glared at the wheel on the left side of the car.

“Ah shiiiite, fuckin’ Austria.”

He shuffled across the center console into the driver’s seat, grumbling the entire way. Soap glanced around on the off chance another miracle would drop into his lap and help him start the car, he froze looking at the dashboard.

“Hell’s bells…cannae believe this shite.”

Soap swiped the keys off the dash, holding his breath as he put them in the ignition, cackling like a maniac when the engine purred to life.

***

Ghost had an itch he couldn’t scratch, humming and ever present. It simmered below his skin the entire flight, he forced himself to sit stock still, to fight the urge to tear his skin off. Eventually, the helicopter touched down in a dark field, Ghost was out of his seat before it even landed.

“Message from König,” Price said, stepping out behind Ghost. “Reports of a fire east of here this morning, haven’t gotten anyone on the ground yet but suspected Kriegshunde base.”

Ghost, Price, and Gaz got into the truck provided by König’s contacts, and fuck did they owe that man big time. Usually they didn’t let Ghost drive, on account of being a danger to public safety, but now they needed fast. Ghost threw the car into drive, taking off east, following coordinates from Price.

‘Fire’ didn’t do justice to the scene they found just outside of Wolfsberg. It looked more like a concentrated inferno had swallowed the place nearly whole. Torching evidence most likely. The warehouse hadn’t been very big, and very little of anything recognizable was left, it didn’t take long to search the rubble. 

What they found nearly stopped Ghost- no. Right then it was Simon’s heart that stopped. More preserved than anything else, like they’d poured gasoline on everything but that spot, a semi charred chair. Around the chair was a pool of blood, likely part of a larger pool burned away in the fire.

While the blood, too much blood to lose , was disturbing, they froze seeing the tac vest, what was left of it anyway. The blood soaked tac vest was accompanied by several things: a radio, a bloody knife, a pistol that Ghost was begging the universe it wasn’t the one he thought it was, three bullets, …and the dog tags of one John ‘Soap’ MacTavish.

Chapter Text

It’s been said that grief is just love with no place to go. Simon wondered if that applied to anger, they do call it the first stage of grief, so he supposed it did. He wondered if the fury in his chest—on a hair-trigger, close to boiling over—was all his love for Johnny, all of it hitting a brick wall.

Despite what Price and Gaz might’ve thought, Ghost wasn’t oblivious, and neither was Soap. They each knew their feelings were returned. They’d talked about it, one sleepless night, all those months ago. They often stayed up together, nights with whispered words, lit only by dim candles, when the world was too loud and bright for Simon.

“Should we talk about it?”

They’d been sitting on Ghost’s bed, Soap’s back to his chest, sharing a cigarette.

“Talk about what, Johnny?”

“Och come on, Simon, dinnae play daft.”

Soap had leaned his head back, catching Ghost’s eyes with a grin.

“Yer a right bonnie lad, Simon Riley.”

Simon remembered blushing like a fool, bringing a bare hand up to cover his unmasked face. They’d talked for hours that night, but they each had their own reasons for not pursuing it. They didn’t talk so much about that part, didn’t need to, wasn’t hard to guess. 

Soap couldn’t do half measures, couldn’t have just part of Simon while the military took most of him. There was an unspoken promise of ‘in the future’, and it was the first time Ghost had really considered retiring, the first time in a long time he had anything other than his career. A future with Johnny at his side was appealing; his driving force most days, if he was honest with himself. He often wasn’t. He liked to pretend that he wasn’t wrapped around the Scot’s finger, living and breathing at his service.

As for his own reasons, it was just that, pretending. Ghost justified his restraint behind the noble effort of protecting Johnny. Ghost had always known he’d die—really die—first, it was an immutable fact of life. Mostly, he told himself that he couldn’t do that to Johnny, be more and get ripped away. A selfish part of him relied on the knowledge that he would never be the one to live to regret his restraint. He would die, brief and violent, and Johnny could move on, find better. When he was honest, he didn’t know if he was more protecting Johnny or himself. He was at an emotional impasse, running to or running from everything he ever wanted.

And then Johnny was dead.

And Ghost was living with his regrets.

***

Soap followed the A9 north from Graz; the road was quiet, almost unnerving. Soap’s mind drifted as he drove. 

“Anywhere?” Ghost asked.

Soap nodded, “anywhere in the whole wide world.”

They were drunk in Ghost’s quarters, well, Soap was drunk, Ghost was tipsy at most.

Ghost shrugged, “I don’t know.”

“Och come on, dinnae be borin’.”

Soap straddled Ghost’s lap on the bed, with hands on either side of his head he looked into Ghost’s eyes, “okay, fine. Where would ye go wit me?”

There was no hesitation in Ghost’s reply, “anywhere.”

Soap decided then and there, to hell with half measures, to hell with restraint, to hell with waiting. When he got back, he was going to kiss the life out of that big, stupid, self-destructive bastard, consequences be damned.

***

Simon held Johnny’s dog tags in a death grip, every memory running through his mind at lightspeed. 

“Ye ken there are jellyfish tha’ dinnae die?” Soap asked out of nowhere.

“Are there now.” Ghost kept his gaze trained steadily through the scope.

“Aye.”

Soap launched into a long-winded explanation, of which Ghost understood little, about how immortal jellyfish could live forever. Ghost's mouth twitched under his balaclava, it would be a long night, but he couldn’t help but think it wouldn’t be so bad with Johnny there.

The regrets moved a lot slower, they dragged through his mind, forcing their presence to be known. 

“Let me help ye, Simon,” Johnny pleaded.

“I don’t need your fucking help! Why can’t you just leave me alone?!” 

He was scared—scared of getting too close, of losing Johnny, losing himself to Johnny—he lashed out like a cornered dog. Ghost had done a lot of bad things in his life, but seeing the hurt in Soap’s eyes, knowing he put it there, that felt the worst.

“Yer right, friendship is nae in the field manual.”

He’d gotten to wallow in that one a whole twelve hours before Johnny returned to his door to drag him to breakfast and call him a colorful set of insults. Soap forgave him easy, let it go and moved on. Simon never forgot it.

Johnny was all that occupied his mind. All his love hitting the wall with bleeding fists and screaming with a hoarse throat.

“What do we do?” Gaz asked.

Price was silent for a long time, “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

To many, Ghost was a grim reaper, a walking embodiment of death itself, coming to take their soul.  Ghost had sent a lot of people to hell; that skull mask was the last thing a lot of souls had seen. A stone-cold killer; most days, seemingly little more than an attack dog awaiting a target. Not a lot of people saw much beyond that. In that moment, the privilege of knowing Simon Riley beyond Ghost was a unique kind of torture. 

They stood in a field in Austria, watching death himself fall to his knees. They saw the exact moment Ghost gave way to Simon. They saw the moment the fate of the world was signed and sealed.  The look in his eye when he stood and turned to them was scarier than anything they’d ever seen from Ghost. Simon would make it his mission to destroy everyone involved, and he’d burn the whole world down around him to do it.

***

Soap wondered if it was healthy, the amount of his brain that was occupied by Simon Riley, didn’t leave a lot of room for much else. He didn’t mind though, to him—unlike maybe anyone else who had ever seen the man—Ghost was a nice thought, comforting. Like his personal avenging angel. In return for Ghost’s terrifying loyalty, Soap got to hold Simon close to his chest, protecting him from everything Ghost couldn’t.

As he neared Frankfurt on A3, Soap thought about the last time he and Ghost had been there. They had been holed up in a safehouse, waiting for evac in the early hours of the morning.

“What do you get when you combine a rhetorical question and a joke?”

“I cannae take your awful jokes right noo, L.T.” Soap said, knowing Ghost would carry on anyway.

As the silence stretched on, it took Soap a moment to understand, “...a hate ye.”

Ghost cackled shamelessly. Soap watched him—covered in blood and grime, mask askew, gun in hand, head thrown back, laughing at his expense—the only thought in his mind was ‘beautiful’.

Soap would do anything to see Simon’s shit-eating grin after a truly terrible joke again.

***

Jaime Anderson said, “Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.”

Ghost thought that was bullshit. His grief—yes it was love, it was love and anger and fear—had somewhere to go. His grief had a lot of places to go, Klagenfurt for one. After that, probably Germany. It for sure had a few trips to make to hell. His grief wasn’t in his eyes or his throat or hollows of anything, his grief was in his blood, boiling, heart pumping it all through his body; it spread down his arms, curling his fingers, a fist itching for violence. His grief formed a blade’s edge, ready to wage a one-man war and send an entire organization to the depths of hell. 

Chapter Text

“Oh fucking shit fuck.”

“Eloquent, Kyle,” Price said, not looking up from his task.

“Ha, ha.” Gaz rolled his eyes, “Ghost is gone.”

Price’s head whipped up, looking around them, Ghost was gone, “Fuckin’ shit.”

With a heavy sigh, Price jumped up into the helicopter, “Nik, get us to base, now .”

“Aye, sir.”

Upon arriving back at base, Gaz and Price raced to the war room. Flying through the door, Price to the table and Gaz to the computer, they’d contacted their friends on the way back. Their message was brief, intentionally vague, some things had to be said face to face—as much as they could anyway.

“Get them on the line.”

“Which ones?” Gaz asked.

Price glanced at him, “all of them.”

Four windows appeared on the screen. In one, König sat once again at the desk, dressed and masked with Horangi standing behind him; it was late in Seoul. Farah and Alex stood beside each other in a second window; they were in a tent, dimly lit by the setting sun. In the third window, Alejandro and Rudy were sitting beside each other in what looked to be private quarters lit up by the morning sun. The fourth window held a grim looking Laswell, despite—most likely—not knowing what was about to be said, she knew it was bad.

Farah broke the silence, “what’s this about? ”

“You’ve never called us all together like this before,” Alejandro said, tension visible in his shoulders.

“Ghost is gone.”

The silence stretched on until it was suffocating.

“Gone how? ” Laswell’s voice was measured, steady in a way Price could tell she didn’t feel.

“We think he’s gone after Kriegshunde,” Gaz said.

Horangi’s hand gripped König’s shoulder, the two had more information than the others, the conclusion was easier to draw.

“The mercenaries?” Alex asked. “He’s one of the best soldiers I know, he’s careful, he can take them.”

“It’s not them I’m worried about,” Price almost whispered.

Rudy’s face went from worried to utterly blank; his voice was clear and low, “What aren’t you telling us?”

Price sighed and looked down, “Soap went MIA over two days ago. Today we found his dog tags and… a lot of blood. Now Ghost is gone, he’s going to get himself killed out there.”

Masked or not, the look of pain was evident on every face. Soap was everyone’s friend, it was hard not to love the excitable scot. Farah had called him a golden retriever on more than one occasion, ruffling his hair with a fond look in her eyes. Alejandro and Rudy had been steadily teaching him Spanish ever since they met. Soap understood the weird CIA shit Laswell and Alex said when no one else did. Soap had practically dragged König, and by extension Horangi, kicking and screaming into their social circle. He claimed Kyle as his best friend on day one, and Price as ‘team dad’ not long after. He called them family, a weird, fucked up, international family, but family just the same. 

And the whole family knew what Soap meant to Ghost.

Rudy spoke first, “we’ll be on the next flight out.”

“I can’t ask that of you-”

“You didn’t.”

“We’ll be there,” Horangi said softly.

Nods of agreement came from every screen.

***

It took nearly three days to get a solid hit on Ghost. He’d left a trail of destruction in his wake, but stuck much to his namesake. On the third day they’d found a compound, a large house with several outbuildings. They swept the smaller structures first, finding the same thing in almost every one; each building appeared to have been occupied, recently, probably by guards. Each building also seemed to have been abandoned with haste. 

The rain hadn’t stopped, but the boot prints in the mud were still fresh enough to be seen, frantic trails leading toward the house. 

The eight of them—with an addition of Laswell on overwatch—broke into pairs and swept the house. The building had three floors; one team to the basement, two on the first floor, and one the second. As they moved carefully through the rooms, there seemed to be more blood on the ground than in the bodies on the first floor; it could really be considered a slipping hazard. 

“I expected more bodies to be honest, ” Alex said on coms.

“You didn’t see the kitchen, hermano,” Alejandro said.

The inside could only be described as carnage. The walls in the kitchen looked like a modern art museum that was too fond of red.

“Fuckin’ hell,” Gaz said.

“Mierda,” Alejandro said as Rudy muttered what might be a prayer.

Gaz rolled his eyes, “glad you’re enjoying your PG experience, Keller. Crime scene doesn’t even begin to describe what’s happening here.”

Price was inclined to agree; the kitchen and adjacent rooms were a bloody mess. The pairs continued searching. Eventually, Farah let out a sharp whistle. 

“East wing, second door on the left,” Laswell provided through coms.

“Lads, keep searching your floors, we’ll meet em,” Price replied. 

Price and Gaz followed Laswell’s directions to Farah and Alex in the east wing. They entered a small room off the hallway, on the far wall was a metal vault-like door, panic room. Light emitted from the room, seemingly the only place in the house with power. They stepped inside to see Farah and Alex stood before a desk full of screens. It was a monitor room, camera feeds covering the whole house, all screens still rolling; on left screens they could see Alejandro and Rudy in the basement, on the right showed König and Horangi on the second floor. On the desk in front of the monitors, Ghost’s black and white union jack patch was pinned by a blood soaked knife.

***

Ghost watched the house quietly. The sun was still out enough to see by, but lights were on. There were sets of guards in a few of the smaller buildings, maybe four pairs across the six buildings in his sight. 

A man with a gun in his belt stood smoking on the front step; Ghost watched the smoke float, his mind was still—if not calm—waiting was familiar. Movement drew his attention back to focus, the man dropped the cigarette, grinding it beneath his heel before going inside. Ghost slipped in shortly behind him, sneaking up on him was laughably easy. The arterial spray of his slit throat felt like the first full breath after being held underwater for too long. One down.

“Ye keep count?” Johnny looked at him with equal apprehension and fascination, “always?”

Simon laughed, “yeah Johnny, always.”

Ghost turned left towards an archway, he pressed up against the wall as he heard two voices. One of them walked out of the room, Ghost let him walk far enough to be out of sight before throwing a hand in front of his mouth and dragging him backwards and stabbing his torso once, twice, three times before gently lowering the body to the floor. Two. 

Ghost wiped the blade on his tac pants as he slipped into the kitchen. He dove behind the kitchen counter as lucky number three’s head turned to the door. Three’s face scrunched, he walked towards the door, unfortunately—for him—passing Ghost’s hiding place. He dragged the knife in swift motion, severing both achilles tendons. The man released a choked grunt as he dropped to the floor. Ghost surged forward gripping three’s hair to plunge the knife into his right eye.

“Fuckin’ beautiful, sir.”

Ghost took a deep breath, adjusting his grip on the knife and settling himself. Deep breaths, Simon. Deep breaths. Ghost followed the hallway in the back of the kitchen, at the end of the short hall was a door. He held the knife firmly in one hand and gently grabbed the door handle with the other. There were lights and the sounds of a football match—a telly, maybe radio—floating up rickety stairs.

Four sat half dozing in front of a small telly. Ghost came up behind him silently and sank his knife into Four’s temple. Ghost found the electrical panel on the wall and proceeded to flip all the breakers like a child—or Johnny—in an elevator. A noise from the stairs had him quickly moving to the body and yanking out the knife. Ghost moved near the bottom of the stairs and pressed his back to the wall.

“How do ye do tha’?”

“Do what, Johnny.”

“Yer a big bastard, how do ye move so quiet?”

“This might be hard for you to understand, but for starters, I don’t talk”

“Awa’ an bile yer heid!”

As Five reached the bottom of the stairs, Ghost swung the knife into the side of his neck. He gripped Five’s shoulder as leverage to rip the knife down and forward, severing the trachea entirely. Ghost walked back to the electrical panel, he pulled out Johnny’s pistol, now fully loaded, and fired indiscriminately into the breakers and wires.

When he was done he slunk back up the stairs, using the ever growing shadows to his advantage. As he passed through the kitchen, the last rays of the golden hour painted a soft glint on the blood soaked knife. 

“Kinda pretty aint it?” Soap turned his bloody glove in the fire light.

Ghost looked at him with a soft grin, “a sick fuck aren’t you?”

Soap smirked, “yeah, but so are you.”

Ghost was actually almost surprised by the next guard, but Six’s gun had barely raised when the projectile knife landed in his shoulder, forcing him to drop it. He got about two words into the radio as Ghost vaulted over the table and ripped it from his hands. Ghost pulled the knife from Six’s shoulder only to jam it into his forehead. When Six fell, Ghost braced his boot against his skull to rip the knife out.

Ghost slipped into the next room, about to stab a guard from behind when another entered the room. He changed course, throwing the knife into the throat of new Seven and jumping on the back of Eight. Eight grabbed at Ghost’s arms around his throat, trying to yell. Ghost’s gloved fingers slid into his mouth, grabbing hard before Eight could bite, an animalistic roar tore from Ghost’s throat as he ripped jaw from skull. 

His vision blurred, sound slowed and muffled. He was quickly jerked back into awareness when a bullet grazed his cheek. Nine stood in the doorway gun raised, Ghost dove for his knife, growling when his path was cut off by a second bullet. Ghost charged at Nine, dodging a third bullet as he went. Nine’s arm crushed under the force of Ghost’s grip, which he used to drag him forward. Ghost barely felt the force it took to snap his neck.

He got a hold on his knife just in time for Ten to run into the room with…a rolling pin? Ghost caught Ten’s swing and plunged the knife into his abdomen, dragging it across, gutting him. Hearing shouting from multiple directions, Ghost opted for the stairs. Upstairs, Eleven and Twelve seemed to have no guns, he went for the one with a knife. He heard rustling behind him as he kicked out eleven’s knee, slipping behind him to rip his head back and slit his throat.

“Ye look a wee bit insane when ye do shite like tha’” 

“Never said I wasn’t insane.”

The familiar sound of a gunshot rang through the air and pain bloomed in Ghost’s shoulder. Lucky fucker got a gun, shit shot though. With a pained hiss, Ghost launched the knife into Twelve’s bicep, and really, these people need to learn to not drop their guns. Ghost lunged at Twelve, gripping his hair to smash his face into his knee before pulling out the knife. He stabbed between the fourth and fifth rib on either side, one after the other, piercing Twelve’s lungs and leaving him to drown in his own blood. 

The shouting downstairs sounded like too many bodies for Ghost, now injured, to handle with his trusty knife. He picked up twelve’s dropped knife before leaning over the banister and putting four bullets between four sets of eyes in rapid succession. Ghost finished sweeping the upstairs, empty, before going back down the stairs. He didn’t hear anyone else but Ghost was nothing if not thorough. 

Slinking down the empty east hallway, he found a partially open door. Dim grey light seeped out of the room, separate power? Ghost slipped into the room, gun drawn. Beyond the door was a small room with an opened vault door that looked to be a false wall. In the vault there was a desk full of stacked monitors, the split screens showing bodies all over the house in black and white.

Ghost’s grin bordered on feral as he got an idea.

***

Price sat at the desk swiftly and got to work on the screens. He rolled the feed backward, waiting for movement. When the timestamp read about two hours before they arrived, Price’s breath stopped. He paused the video, Ghost in a blood soaked mask, half obscured eyes trained directly on the camera above the front door.

“Price,” Alejandro’s voice over coms broke his haze, “there’s smoke. It’s spreading quickly.”

“Shit, everybody out,” Price said into his com before turning to Gaz, Farah, and Alex, “grab what you can. Any of you got a thumb drive?”

They all turned to look at Alex, who took a moment to notice, “wait, why are you guys staring at me, why would you just assume I have one?”

Farah raised an unimpressed brow and Alex grumbled as he pulled a drive out of one of the many pockets on his vest. They transferred data as quickly as they could before meeting the others outside.

***

Ghost stormed through rural Austria on a warpath. He looked the perfect picture of fury—blood soaked, eyes red, fists clenched, and chest heaving. His team would catch up with him soon, they’d haul him back to base and mother hen. He’d restock and go back out. They’d try to stop him, but nothing short of a final death would keep him from avenging his Johnny.

Chapter Text

He wasn’t really sure how long the drive was meant to be, it felt like it had been a very long time, but it was still night. Soap checked the gas, about three quarters of a tank. Same as it had been last he checked, and the time before that, and every time before that. 

“You haven’t got a patient bone in your body, Johnny,” Ghost said, resting a heavy hand on Soap’s bouncing knee.

“Ah do too,” Soap whined.

“Do not.”

“Do too.”

“Do not.”

Ghost’s eyes—well, eye—never left the scope during the childish exchange.

Ultimately, Ghost was right, he’d never been very patient. He’d never been very good with time either. Soap flipped on the radio. The first piano notes crackled through the speakers, god he loved this song.

***

   - Slow down, you crazy child

  You’re so ambitious for a juvenile

  But then if you’re so smart, tell me 

  Why are you still so afraid…

“Dance with me.”

Ghost looked up, “what?”

“Dance with me,” Soap repeated.

Ghost stared silently.

Soap grabbed his gloved hands and tried to pull him up, “come awn, i’s ma favorite song, we have tae dance.”

Ghost went willingly. His hands found Soap’s hips, keeping the pretense of respectful distance until he was pulled in firmly. They swayed in the candle light, pressed together and heedless of the world around them; the base could have been on fire and Ghost would have hardly noticed.

   - You got your passion, you got your pride

   But don’t you know that only fools are satisfied

   Dream on, but don’t imagine they’ll all come true -

In the end, he could never deny his Johnny anything.

Blood dripped sluggishly from the hole in his shoulder. Ghost conceded maybe it was time to let them catch up, let them drag him back to base and get a few hours of rest.

***

Soap blinked. Light. There was light in the distance, the sun was rising. He was so busy smiling like a fool he nearly missed the sign.

              M 20

    The North West

Maidstone             15

Dartford                56

London                 85

Soap slammed the breaks. The car skidded to a stop in the open road and he threw the door open. He nearly sprinted to stand in front of the sign and stare. He dropped to his knees. What the fuck?  

The sun was up. The road was empty. It was quiet, so fucking quiet. 

In the morning light, he took stock of himself again. His head still hurt, but not so much. He still had blood on his clothes. He still had the radio, the knife, his pistol, and his dog tags. It was hard to see to the right…fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He brought his right hand up to his face, blood. Strange. It wasn’t dripping, but it was like it never dried. He used his left hand to cover his unimpaired eye, nothing. He couldn’t see anything. Fuck.  

Shelf. That is where those breakdowns would go. I’m fine, he told himself, everything is fine. He would get to base, he would find Ghost, and everything would be right with the world. 

***

It took another day and a half for the team to find him. They must’ve been exhausted; seemed more likely than just getting sloppy.

He didn’t move from his spot in the rafters when Gaz and Price entered the warehouse.

“Clear,” Alejandro’s voice came through their radios.

“How many more of these fuckin’ warehouses are there?” Gaz asked, he seemed dead on his feet.

“Three, we-” Price looked up then, his eyes met Ghost’s, “but we don’t need to worry about them, he’s here.”

“Sure about that? Or is it just as empty as all the fuckin’ others.” Gaz needed sleep, Ghost almost felt bad, but he didn’t tell them to follow him.

“Pretty confident,” Price said absently.

Price slowly put his gun on the ground, he watched Ghost like some kind of cornered dog. It was then Ghost remembered the death grip he had on one of his knives; Price relaxed minutely when he sheathed it. 

Their staring contest broke when König and Horangi came through the doors. König’s head was tilted at an odd angle.

“Was just about to radio everyone,” Price said.

Horangi nodded, König looked up at him. The Austrian gave a near imperceptible head shake. 

Ghost tilted his head, silent what?

König glanced at the others, they weren’t looking. He brought his hand up, gesturing at his eyes. Ghost didn’t understand until he saw blue flash through the eyes of the mask. He squeezed his own eyes shut, getting his few visible features under control.

He wasn’t sure if he should’ve been surprised or not that König wasn’t human. He ran through it in his mind, he’d seen the man’s face and he looked rather alive. So he couldn’t be like Ghost, but he certainly wasn’t like the others. Ghost wasn’t exactly as educated as he probably should’ve been on his fellow non-humans, and it left him completely at a loss as to what König could be.

Ghost dropped from the rafters, letting his feet land with a thud. Gaz jumped higher than Ghost thought possible for the human.

“Jesus what the fuck man!?”

Ghost let them shepherd him back to base, he shrugged off their attempts to get him to medical, opting for a first aid kit and the privacy of his quarters. After cleaning the slowly closing wound on his shoulder and putting on a fresh set of clothes he joined the team of 141 and their strays in the dining hall. They spoke among themselves and let him sit in silence as they ate. The conversation was a bit stunted but he appreciated the attempt at normalcy, even if his own world was falling apart.

After eating, they let him leave to his quarters with worried glances. He fell into his bed exhausted and slept like- well, the dead.

After six uninterrupted hours, a personal record, Ghost woke. He would get undamaged tac gear, clean and reload his arsenal, and get back to his warpath, that was the plan. The team disagreed.

“You can’t just go back out there,” Price said, following him.

“Like hell I can’t.” Ghost didn’t slow his pace.

“Where are you going so fast?” Gaz said as they passed him.

“Leaving,” Ghost grunted.

“Captain, are you just going to let him-”

Ghost whipped around, backing Gaz to the wall, “he doesn’t need to let me do shit.”

Gaz put his hands up, eyes wide. “Okay. Okay, Ghost,” his voice was placating. 

He had the same look on his face, the one that said Ghost was a feral animal, something to be wary of. It should’ve been enough to make him stop. To pull back. Stop hovering over the sergeant. Instead it made him mad. Made him want to snarl and snap his teeth like the beast they thought he was.

“Simon…”

Wrong move, Price. Ghost’s head whipped in his direction. He clenched his fists and  ground his teeth in an attempt to keep the grating growl in his throat. He knew his eyes were wild, chest heaving, and shaking with rage. Before he could make a decision on what colossal mistake to make, he was being scruffed like an unruly pup, thrown against the opposite wall, and filled with a whole new type of fury. 

He lashed out in blind rage, kicking and baring his teeth behind the mask. Hands grabbed the front of his tac vest and slammed him into the wall twice. The strength was inhuman.

“ICH GLAUB ES HACKT!” König practically roared in his face.

***

Soap stood outside of the main building, he wasn’t really paying attention to how he got there. Find Ghost. Ghost will know what to do. It was all that remained in his head by then.

Find Ghost. 

Ghost will know what to do.

Ghost will make everything okay.

Ghost will help.

Ghost will help.

Ghost will- 

Simon will help. 

Simon.

It was his lifeline. His light in the dark. His Simon. The world fell away when Simon looked at him, if he found him—just got that man to look at him again—nothing else would matter. Not the fear. Not the pain. None of it. Just Johnny and Simon.

He needed to find him and everything would be okay, it would be fine.

The base was quiet. That eerie, skin crawling quiet that says ‘no one is here and no one should be here.’ He ran his fingers along the sterile walls as he wandered the halls of the familiar building, it felt so lifeless without all the noise. He couldn’t recall a time it’d ever been so quiet, not even in the dead of night when he and Simon would get tea in the dark.

“Wake up, ye big bastard,” Soap said, though he was sure the man was already awake.

“What do you want, Johnny?” he groaned from under the covers.

“Let’s have tea.”

That got Ghost to sit up, “you don’t even like-” maybe Ghost saw the haunted look Soap wasn’t trying hard enough to hide. “Yeah, let’s have tea.”

Soap sat on the counter while they waited for water to boil, Ghost slotted between his legs. 

“Why don’t dinosaurs talk?”

Soap dropped his head on Ghost’s shoulder with a long-suffering sigh.

“Come on, why don’t dinosaurs talk, Johnny?” Ghost pushed.

“Fine, tell me Lt, why dinnae dinosaurs talk?”

“...’cause they’re dead.”

There was a long moment of silence, “ye're awful.”

Ghost’s chest shook with that breathy laughter of his. Soap was unable to hold back his own laugh, he silently cursed how charmed he was by this idiot. 

Soap turned a corner. There he was. 

Simon.

In all his menacing, feral glory.

He’s not even looking at him and it’s still like everything has just fallen back into place. Like the world has righted itself now that they’re back under one roof. It took another moment for the rest of the scene to catch up with him, like it was just blinking into existence.

Ghost was held against the wall by König, spitting mad but subdued by the larger man.

“Calm down!” Price yelled. It only riled Ghost up more.

Gaz was against the opposite wall, Rudy came out into the hall and went to him, followed by Alejandro. Horangi was there, Alex and Farah, fuck , even Laswell was there. His whole fucked up little family stood in front of him. Seeing them all together always sparked an indescribable joy in him, but…something was wrong. They were upset, they were fighting.

His family was fighting.

“Simon?”

Then Ghost’s eyes were on him and for a second the world lit up, warm and comfortable. For a second everything was okay, but only for a second. Ghost’s whole body dropped like a marionette with its strings cut. His eyes weren’t seeing Soap, it was like he wasn’t seeing anything at all.

König caught him, “Ghost?”

Everyone was watching, looking on in concern as the previously raging lieutenant went limp. 

Ghost spoke, voice hoarse, “he’s dead. He’s dead. Johnny’s dead.”

And John’s world came crashing down.

Chapter Text

Dead. Dead. Dead?  

John didn’t feel dead. 

Dead tired maybe. Dead on his feet. Dead inside if he was feeling dramatic, which he felt he deserved after everything. But…dead? Plain old? That wasn’t right. He felt like shit, but alive. 

Joke. His mind latched to the idea. It’d be a bit shit, but he supposed Ghost always had shit humor.

“Aye Soap,” Simon’s voice crackled over the comm.

Silence.

“Soap.”

More silence.

“Johnny.”

“Wha’d’ya want LT?” John finally replied.

“Why did the scarecrow get promoted?”

“A’m no’ doin this with ye noo.”

“Come on Johnny.”

“No.”

“Please?”

Big, bad, scary Ghost, legend among legends, more myth than man reduced to pouting. God he was in love with a fucking idiot. He sighed, enunciating for dramatic effect “fine, why did the scarecrow get promoted, LT?”

“...coz he was outstanding in his field.”

John thought about researching autism.

“Get it?”

God, he hated this man, “yeah LT, ah get it.”

He fought the grin and went back to his actual job.

“LT?”

Simon’s flinch was small, near imperceptible, but Johnny knew him. He heard him.

“Simon.” He said it with more force. 

This time there was no reaction. No one else acknowledged him either. 

“Captain?” Nothing.

“Gaz?” Nothing .

They began to disperse.

König hauled Ghost up, “rest, brother. Ja?”

Ghost nodded despondently.

No. No, no. Simon walked away.

“You won’ leave, LT, will ye?”

Soap was hammered. He’d say they both were but Ghost was always a bit weird about it. The man could drink him under the table without so much as stumbling.

“Never.”

“Wan’ ye ta stay.”

“I will.”

“Always?”

“Always, Johnny.”

He smiled, pushing further into Ghost’s chest and wrapping his arms around his waist. Simon would never leave him. He knew it like an immutable truth.

***

It’s not unheard of, zombies. Well, he knew they weren’t really called that but he didn’t pay that much attention when Gran was on about it. A choice he was regretting. Point being, he knew, in theory, that there were creatures among humans out there. Undead, ghosts, weird shit. He’d heard of places they run free, but the SAS wasn’t one of those places. The British military wasn’t exactly a paragon of acceptance, more an arm of execution. 

So, dead. Kind of. He was fine. Completely. He liked to think he was taking the news remarkably well. He only screamed for five minutes. Only tried to throw a few things before realizing it was no use. He was…numb.

Night had fallen as he walked long corridors. He passed plenty of people, but he gave up trying to talk to them hours ago. One can only be ignored so many times before it’s painful. Well, he wasn’t being ignored per se, just unheard, which felt worse somehow. 

Eventually, he found himself at Ghost’s door. It shouldn’t surprise him. Should he knock? Open it? Phase through it? He didn’t really know how the ghost thing worked. He settled on opening it. He reached for the door knob and it turned easily. Ghost never left his room unlocked. Ever. How far from reality was he?

Shelving that breakdown, Soap walked into the room. It looked the same; clothes on the floor, bed unmade, John’s drawings lining the walls. He saw himself in every inch of Simon’s space. When did their lives become so intertwined? When did he stop knowing where he ended and Ghost began?

His eyes fell to the desk, the one he’d spent so many hours at. His journal, an old leather thing, still sat on the desk. It was open to his last drawing, one of Simon. Below it, written in fine black ink…

Three words. Five syllables. Thirteen letters. Neat lettering. Innocuous. Three words. Five syllables. Thirteen letters. A knife in his chest with thirteen teeth clawing into him, tearing him apart from the inside.

“Most traumatic memory, go.”

Ghost leveled an unimpressed glare through his mask.

“Ah’m jokin’, Ah’m jokin’. Dinnae get yer knives oot.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes before Soap spoke again, “least favorite word. ah’ll go first, ‘pickle.’ Stupid word”

Ghost huffs, it’s a while before he replies. “Sorry”

“Wha’?

Ghost’s voice was low, “least favorite word, it’s ‘sorry’”

Soap wanted to ask why, but he’d been working on that. Not pushing Ghost. But it seemed the man was feeling in a sharing mood.

“The hell is an apology worth? Jus’ makes ya feel better about yourself. Fix it or fuck off.”

“Actions speak louder than words, ay?”

“Words don’t mean anything Johnny.”

And John didn’t know what to do with that.

Three words. Five Syllables. Thirteen letters.

“I’m sorry Johnny.”

Chapter Text

I’m sorry Johnny

And what the fuck was he supposed to do with that? For the first time since Soap woke up, ash covered and dead , he was angry. He was so angry. And why? What did it get him? Nothing, really, but standing on the roof screaming at the stars felt good. So did throwing things, punching the wall, kicking doors, every impulse controlled in his life let loose at once. It’s not like he could damage anything anyways. Throwing, stabbing, breaking, lighting things on fucking fire—no matter what he did, it was all fixed the second he turned around. His destruction was nothing more than a figment of his imagination. 

And maybe that was worse. There was something philosophical there, an inability to change his surroundings or interact with the real world, something like that. He didn’t really have the spare energy to follow that train of thought. All of his focus was on futile obliteration of government property. Let it not be forgotten John MacTavish was first and foremost a demolitions expert.

He couldn’t really say how long that went on for, time didn’t quite pass right. Days at least, if the shift changes were anything to go by. When not wreaking havoc on his own personal vision of reality, he spent time in Ghost’s room, God knows he didn’t seem to be using it. He passed the hours putting his hands on everything within reach. He supposed privacy mattered a bit less now he was dead. Snooping wouldn’t hurt anyone. But, for whatever reason, he couldn’t bring himself to give items much more than a passing glance. He opened drawers, grazed his fingers on papers and containers, picked up pencils, stuck his hands in pockets, but nothing more. He didn’t read papers, nor open the small box he found in the bottom of the closet. He didn’t break anything either, not in here, not in the space they shared. This room, these things, they were to be treated with gentleness. He lit fire to the mess hall, smashed TVs in the lounge, kicked down doors, and tore apart everything he got his hands on; but Ghost’s room saw no carnage, not even in his imagination.

How’s the saying go? Speak—think, really, in this case—of the devil, and he shall appear. He felt his presence before he saw him. He turned his head, Ghost was to his left staring despondently at the desk. Why didn’t he see him before? Why did he have to turn his head so far to look at him? God, fuck he didn’t have the energy for this shit. In his moment of panic he didn’t notice Ghost had sat down. He had Soap’s journal open to a blank page, writing. He leaned over shoulder, it was his own journal after all.

“Johnny,”

Well fuck, it was to him. Which, what? He read on.

“I failed you. I was supposed to protect you and I failed.”

Lower, like an afterthought-

“I’ll fix it”

With that, Ghost left. 

He didn’t come back.

Fuck fuck fuck.

In Soap’s attempt to not think about “I’ll fix it” he resorted to focusing on the next crisis. Namely his inability to see out of his right eye. God, that was inconvenient. Now that he was aware of it, he couldn’t be un aware. He supposed it wasn’t any different than it was before, but after, all he could focus on was what he couldn’t see. His aim would be fucked, not that he’d really get a chance to test it, being dead and all. But the principle bothered him. Part of him didn’t know whether to be more concerned about the lack of vision or the fact that it took him fuck knows how long to notice. He’d be a fucking liability in the field—also not really an issue, because again, dead. But fuck if he wasn’t annoyed anyways.

It was some time in the middle of the night when Soap returned from his most recent breakdown. Ghost wasn’t around. Shocker. The journal was open again, though. Large, in bold black ink

16.

Hm.

He looked around, cataloging the things he’d seen a thousand times before. The space looked neater than he’d left it. Ghost had evidently stopped in long enough to leave a note and tidy up. Fuck if he knew what 16 meant. If Ghost was going to use Soap’s journal and address the notes to him, the fucker might as well make them make sense. Though, Ghost couldn’t really have known he’d see them.

***

“Where the fuck has he gone now?” Gaz’s voice stopped Soap’s wandering.

“Have you considered putting a leash on him?” Rudy’s voice came over a com.

He peeked around the corner—which…he was a fucking ghost, he could just walk in. Gaz and Price stood in the room with four screens. Horangi and König on one. Rudy and Alejandro on another. Farah and Alex on the third and fourth, one must be on a mission. Laswell was nowhere to be seen, the matriarch of their fucked up little family tended to be the busiest.

“I agree with Rudy–” Alejandro started before Gaz cut in.

“Please hold while I pretend to be shocked.”

“Aye, shut it cabrón. We all know he’s a flight risk.”

 “While I appreciate the advice, he’s not exactly a Cocker Spaniel. Got any advice for getting that leash on ?” Price said.

Simon Riley on a leash, what a thought. Soap considered the thought of a collar on Ghost for about half a second and nearly had a conniption. That way lay dangerously horny thoughts. He ought to save it for later, figure out if the dead can wank…for purely scientific reasons of course.

At some point during his wayward thoughts, the conversation had devolved into nonsense.

“He’s a grown man-” Farah

“He’s a fucking liability is what he is.” Rudy

“He’s also your friend, jackass.” Alex.

“Sí, a friend I know well enough to know that losing track of him doesn’t end well for anyone.” 

“Enough.” Price.

“Soap is gone, you cannot control the Ghost anymore.” Horangi’s words were a gut punch and a compliment wrapped in a flattering bullet.

“Oh, fuck you.” Gaz was angry now.

Horangi remained calm, “fact, not insult.”

König, a black medical mask and aviators covering his face—the fuckboy-ification upon getting dick should be studied—interjected, “what he means-”

“I say what I mean.”

“Kätzchen be quiet-”

Alex faked a gag, “get that freak shit out of here.”

Horangi, the psycho, had no hesitation to obliterate Alex. “Careful, I’ve shared wall with you, ṭiflatun .”

And oh my fucking god Farah calls Alex babygirl, if he were alive he’d be telling everyone .

“Fuck OFF.”

“ENOUGH,” Price roared.

“Price,” König spoke in that weirdly earnest way of his, “he’ll come back. He always does.”

“You sure about that?” Gaz added. The twitch in the captain’s eye could have been unrelated, probably not.

“He doesn’t know how not to. It’s his home. It’s Soap’s home.”

And, oh. That happened. 

He knew Ghost loved him. He knew it. But to have it stated so plainly by others was…new. Sure there were jokes, teasing about the nature of their relationship, the way they acted around each other. He was used to it, the team had no problem ribbing him about it—but Ghost, they’d never said anything directly. 

It’s his home. It’s Soap’s home.

The emphasis on the latter. Like it meant something. Like their homes were intrinsically tied. Something poetic. 

It was, by his best estimate, three days later when the journal held a new note. The 16 was crossed out, next to it a new number.

27.

So Ghost was back, cryptic as ever.

The click of the lock brought him back to focus. Ghost?

It was Gaz’s voice he heard first, “Price is gonna have a right fit you know.”

“Piss off Garrick.” Ghost grit out as he entered.

“You can’t just ignore him.” Soap wished he could shake Gaz’s shoulders and tell him to stop poking the agitated bear.

Gaz tried to follow him in. Ghost whipped around and lifted a hand before aborting the motion. “Leave.” His voice was low and gravelly, almost inhuman.

Gaz looked him up and down, face pinched. “You can burn down the whole world, it still won’t bring him back.” And with that he walked away.

Ghost shut the door. Didn’t slam it, shut it, gently. He walked to the bed with quiet steps, sat down silently, and stared ahead. Soap ached to hold him. He did the next best thing, and kneeled before him. 

“Oh Simon.” The words escaped him, painfully quiet.

Ghost shuddered. Soap placed his hand on Simon’s knee and god the touch felt so real. He could feel the texture of his familiar black pants. The shape of the muscle beneath them. The cold Ghost always seemed to radiate. Something wet hit his hand, he looked up and oh.

Oh.

He’d never seen Ghost cry, never thought he would. He almost didn’t believe it. But there it was, wet lashes framed deep brown. The kohl around his eyes looked less ‘artfully smudged’ and more ‘sleep-deprived, dehydrated raccoon’. 

He didn’t know how long they sat there. A pantomime of eye contact, probably the closest Soap would ever come to human interaction again. At some point his eyes—eye?—fell closed. Not quite sleep, but something like it. When his eye(s) opened again, Ghost was gone.

It happened all again. Ghost disappeared. Price was spitting mad. The number grew. They sat together—though there were no more tears. Then the cycle repeated.

In all the free time he suddenly had, Soap wandered. He wasn’t bored per se, he quickly discovered new ways to pass the time. Meditation was a thing he did now, was kind of nice really, only took dying to get into it. He also read a lot, anything he could. He took a lot of joy in using his ghost privileges to break into rooms. Someone’s books could tell you a lot about them. As could the things they hid in their sock drawers—how they fit some of those things inside them was beyond him.

He learned he could still draw—as long as he didn’t look away, he could finish the picture. They were only temporary, but on the upside, his pencil never dulled, and the eraser never ran out. And maybe temporary wasn’t so bad, he’d never felt so connected to his art. Every time he drew the curve of Simon’s eyes was a religious experience. It was like laying all his love to paper knowing it would soon burn, leaving only his own memory. Every line and smudge like a prayer to his god behind a devil’s mask.

Ghost was gone for the fifth time. It was the longest he’d been gone since the whole ritual started. Price seemed to drop the anger and dip back into worry. Soap had heard him on the phone.

“I don’t think he’s coming back this time,” a pause presumably a reply on the other end, “it’s been almost six weeks, Kate.”

And that had surprised him. He knew it had been a lot longer, but six weeks? Was his perception of time that bad? Hm.

It was maybe a few days later when Ghost returned, if the crossed out 45 followed by a shaky, blood stained 70 was anything to go by. Seeing it upon waking made panic rise in his throat, all previous numbers had been neat, clean. He needed to find Simon.

Frantic sprinting through the halls showed the base in disarray. The mess was in pandemonium, overlapping voices he could barely catch.

“What happened?”

“The captain’s gonna kill him.”

“Reckon he’s crossed the line this time?” 

“Nah, he’s the fucking Ghost, he could kill the bloody PM and get away with it.”

Captain.

He ran the familiar route to Price’s office. He heard them long before he saw them.

“ARE YOU FUCKING MENTAL? You’ve done a lot of shit in your time Riley, but this? This is the end of the fucking line. Your career mean something to you? Stop this here. Forget the fact that you could get court martialed six ways to bloody Sunday, you’re not fucking invincible.” 

When he made it to the office, Price looked angrier than he’d ever seen him. He’d been on the receiving end of Price’s ire a lot, usually to do with property damage. This however, was almost impressive. Ghost stood impassively as Price raged like he was two seconds from committing homicide. 

“You keep running off half cocked like this and you’ll be dead before a dishonorable discharge even matters. Doesn’t matter to you anyways does it? You stand there like a goddamn corpse, are you even hearing me?”

No response.

“I’m done protecting you. You decide to go out again, don’t fucking come back.”

He knew Price would regret that. It hit like a bullet, and it wasn’t even said to him. Simon didn’t so much as flinch but Soap knew the blow landed. There may well be no coming back from that, fuck.

“Get the fuck out of my office.”

Ghost turned on his heel, the motion stuttered slightly as his gaze slid through Soap. As he stalked past, Soap could see the blood soaking his black tac gear. He followed quickly. The urge to talk to him was so strong, to question him, comfort him, something.

“L.T.? God, look at ye. T’e fuck ‘ave you been up ta? Captain’s proper pissed. Willnae last ah reckon. ‘Course he dinnae mean all ‘e said. Ya ken tha’ though.”

Talking to him felt good, even if Ghost couldn’t hear him.

“Wish ye could hear me, maybe say something. Answer ma questions. Tell me what t’e fuck yer thinkin’.”

Soap didn’t know where the anger came from, but suddenly it flooded him.

“Ye ken wha’, yer a right bastard Simon Riley. They’s yer family. Shouldnae leave ‘em like that. Dinnae ken wha’ t’e hells in yer head, and ye cannae fuckin’ tell me ‘coz ah fuckin died and ye cannae hear me and ah’m runnin’ maself proper mad tryin’ ta un’erstan’. T’e fuck yer numbers mean, ay? Wha’ ye dae on them bloody field trips o’ yers. An’ here ah am ravin like some kind o’ angry lass who’s lad’s runnin’ ‘round on ‘er. Where ye’ go a’ night, Simon, eh?”

He didn’t know when in his hysterics he ended up walking in front. 

“If ye could see me now ay? Fuck L.T., ah jus’ wan’a ken wha’s goin’ on. Wha’ did Price mean? Ye goin on suicide missions now? I cannae even be proper angry, fuck -”

His tirade was halted when his arm was gripped tightly and he was dragged into some kind of supply closet . What the fu-

He was pushed roughly against the wall. His mind stopped blank at the sight of Simon in front of him.

“Johnny, stop .”